Feds target cocaine trafficking ring in Maryland
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
November 8, 2009
A Texas man has been accused of trafficking more than 50 pounds of cocainefrom Arizona and Colorado to Maryland, the second member of a national drug organization busted in the Washington area within the past year, court documents reveal.
Ricardo Avila was taken into custody late last week on cocaine trafficking charges, court records show. He's accused of making trips from Colorado and Surprise, Ariz., to Maryland with a car carrier trailer packed with as much as 50 pounds of cocaine. The drugs, court documents said, had been smuggled into the United States from Mexico.
Last year, federal authorities began an investigation into the unnamed drug organization Avila allegedly works for, court documents filed in Maryland's federal court said. In December, a Montgomery County police corporal arrested Eduardo Reyes-Sotero when he was pulled over on Interstate 270 in Rockville and the corporal found more than 10 pounds of cocaine jammed into the rear door on the driver's side. Reyes-Sotero pleaded guilty and late last month was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
By the time Reyes-Sotero was arrested he had been under surveillance for three months. According to court documents, he was working with the head of a drug trafficking organization to bring drugs from Mexico through Arizona and on to Maryland. On the day of his arrest, authorities searched Reyes-Sotero's home at 15400 Pegg Court in Bowie. Inside they found nearly 18 pounds of cocaine, three digital scales, 13 cell phones and a revolver.
Avila reportedly was at Reyes-Sotero's house the day of the raid, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent wrote in a sworn statement. When Avila saw the police coming toward the house, he ran out a back door, crossed a creek and waited at a nearby Wal-Mart for further instruction. He left behind the trailer he used to transport the drugs across the country, the statement said. Inside it, agents found Avila's Texas commercial driver's license. Travel documents found inside the Bowie home showed that Avila had traveled from Maryland to Colorado and back to Maryland in the week before the raid.
Over the next several months, the ICE agent collaborated details of Avila's role in transporting the drugs from four confidential sources, court documents said. He's currently being held without bail. No attorney for Avila was listed in court records.
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